


In Gotham Without Masks

by navaan



Category: DC Extended Universe, Justice League (2017), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Competency, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Getting Together, Identity Reveal, M/M, Secret Identity, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-24 13:57:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15632070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: “Mr. Wayne,” someone said at his side. “I was hoping to meet you here. We’ve never been introduced.”“You don’t need an introduction.I am Iron Man.”





	In Gotham Without Masks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hito](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hito/gifts).



"I'll go to the Gotham Police Gala," Bruce said before Alfred could admonish him for his crusade on crime leaving no time for a life outside of it.

Alfred studied him, unblinking and unsmiling face as much a mask as the black cowl of Batman was. "Did Ms. Prince ask you to or is Mr. Kent going to be there to investigate Intergang."

"Intergang doesn't operate on our turf," Bruce nearly growled. He had made damn well sure of it. Despite the urban legend of Gotham's vigilante, he knew that Wayne Industries had done more to keep Intergang out of Gotham. There was no better way to fight some syndicates than making sure their cash flows could never be established. And Gotham had too many syndicates operating already. Last thing he needed was more Intergang influence.

"Oh, excuse me. Are you telling me this isn't about League business?" His raised eyebrow said it better even than his unimpressed voice: Alfred knew something was up and he knew Bruce wasn't one to explain his actions when an explanation wasn't absolutely necessary.

With an un-butler-like huff Alfred sat down at the computer and went through his regular news check.

Bruce knew they weren't past this yet.

"Ah," Alfred said a moment later, which clearly meant he had found the news of Tony Stark's arrival in Gotham. "Are we recruiting or just curious?"

"He's too deep into all the wrong connections to be interesting for recruitment," Bruce said callously.

"You weren't so fond of Superman, before..." Alfred stopped.

"Before I got him killed."

Clark was alive. They were friends even. Their tragic fist conflict and team up weren't forgotten, but in many ways, it had forged an alliance and friendship that was stronger than it would have been without it. They both had learned trust from the terrible misreading of intentions and the manipulation it had opened them up to.

"Why are you going then?"

"Jim Gordon will be awarded a medal of honor and he's my friend - and Gertrude Warner's looking to invest in our satellite network."

"Private investment and business, sir. Color me surprised."

Alfred didn't add: "And unconvinced."

Bruce didn't allow his lips to curl into a sardonic smile. He _was_ looking forward to meeting the man who had started calling himself Iron Man.

* * *

He dressed up that evening, decided not to drive himself to let them follow the script of Gotham's favored son the way the media loved it. 

"If we go out, we want it covered by all the papers," Alfred remarked with his usual dry humor that bordered on exasperation.

"Would be a waste of time otherwise," has said as a comeback. His fingers were busy typing out a message to Barry, who was asking advice about how to handle his new boss, who apparently wasn't fond of his lateness and vanishing acts. "Forget about the papers. We want to be talked about on all the social networks."

When had he turned into the Justice Leagues "When the masks are off"-mentor?

"Indeed," Alfred said sardonically. "I know the crash through the roof last night took its toll, so try not to walk as if you'd already had an interesting night."

Bruce made sure they drew eyes when they arrived, a group of journalists with camera's gathering around him as soon as he had stepped out of the car. 

"Alone?" one of them asked, and she was clearly here as one of the freelance gossip girls who did this in hope of more clicks. 

Bruce gave her a good smile, and said: "We're not all as young and cute anymore." He winked before passing her by. 

Another female voice behind him said: "More like he's not planning on going home alone."

He had no plans. But he knew how convenient it was when people thought he was prone to leave with a nice looking young thing on his arm. As always Alfred had a direct line to him. The small device resting in his ear would alert him in case Batman was needed in Gotham or for Justice League business. 

Selina toasted him across the room and he toasted back, wondering already if she was here for reasons that would keep him occupied later.

For half an hour or so he talked to Gotham's socialites, shook hands left and right of investor's and possible business partners. He knew the exact moment when Stark arrived because for a moment the crowd started to swoon, but even he was impressed when Stark walked through the crowd as if he didn't notice the attention.

He saw him talking to the mayor and Gordon and his kids and considered interjecting, but watching from a distance seemed the smarter thing to do. He lost sight of him for a bit after. Obviously, he _wasn’t_ trying to keep him in sight.

It wouldn’t do to show too much interest in a government-connected, narcissistic superhero. 

Batman had Amanda Waller on his case already and the Justice League was very happy to keep SHIELD out of their business.

On the other hand, it wouldn’t do for Bruce Wayne not to be a little curious.

It wasn’t like his alter ego should look like he met superheroes on a regular basis.

He took up his place at the bar when he’d had all the conversations that seemed important.

“Mr. Wayne,” someone said at his side. “I was hoping to meet you here. We’ve never been introduced.”

He looked up and found Stark leaning against the bar now, casually, and watching him over the rim of a glass of a sparkling drink that didn’t smell of champagne and looked like water. 

“You don’t need an introduction. _I am Iron Man._ ”

Stark took it in stride, focusing on him and his outstretched intently. “Yeah, yeah, that’s me. Some good agents had this perfect backstory worked out for me, and poof. I’m not good at following scripts not written by me.”

“I see,” Bruce said and smiled amiably, keeping with his own party persona and shaking Stark's hand with a delighted smile. If Stark gave out information like he was doing now, no wonder whatever SHIELD had planned for him hadn’t worked for more than a second. But Bruce was no fool. He knew how masks worked - and sometimes what you revealed was a conscious choice, a trade to keep the more important secrets to yourself.

Under Stark's scrutiny he raised an eyebrow: "You're not here to gaze into my eyes?"

Tony shook his head. "No, not that they're not lovely, Bruce. I can call you, Bruce? I always wondered why we never met. It's like you never leave Gotham."

"I do very decidedly leave Gotham," he said and laughed while Alfred made a disgruntled comment in his ear. He was about to relate an outrageous story of a cruise he'd spent with a New York dance troupe. 

He hadn't said more than the first few sentences of his well-practiced story when Tony laughed and then frowned. "I used to tell these kinds of stories."

"I heard. Not anymore?"

Tony tapped the middle if his chest and Bruce's eyes zoomed in on the motion. 

"Wouldn't you love to get your hands on that?" Alfred asked with a chuckle. 

An arc reactor could be the source to power their new HQ for years to come. He had discussed it with Clark a few times, even with Diana - something with the power that didn't rival a mother box, but also was far less dangerous. 

He must have stared because Stark was looking at him with a raised eyebrow. "No longer as easy?" he asked and licked his lips. 

"New perspective. Although you look as if you want to get me out of this shirt."

He must have. And it had only been half on purpose. He used his best PR smile. "Always time for that later. Or sooner, if the party's that boring."

Stark watched over his shoulder as people moved around each other, shaking hands, laughing, playing the game of the rich and the famous. "Not why I'm here, but you never know."

Bruce was surprised that Stark after having made a point of not being "that easy" anymore had turned around and left himself open to that kind of innuendo. "Why are you here?"

"Wayne Tech is the company to work with in the field of medical tech. And I have an offer to make."

"Medical technology?"

"Yup."

"Did Batman see that coming?" Alfred asked and he sounded very amused. 

Not exactly. But he too was a businessman when he allowed himself to put away some of the other masks. "I'm listening."

* * *

He wasn't surprised that he didn't get to peel Stark out of his shirt - to look at the arc reactor or otherwise. His evening got cut short by a bank robbery taking on the proportions that needed a Batman when suddenly half a block exploded. He did take with him a telephone number and the memory of some interesting ideas that he would love to see Wayne Tech work on with Stark Industries.

He brought in Lucious on that, did not attend the first meeting because Superman was being attacked by a strangely humanoid robot powered by Kryptonite - and was ready to leave it in the capable hands of the man leading his company with ingenuity.

That was until he was about to stop a man-sized and shaped Bat and found himself bodily falling off a roof. He had it of course: Grapple line out before he was even falling. 

But then he found he wasn't falling.

"You must be Batman," the slightly metallic voice of Tony Stark said. 

"What gave it away?" he growled and used a small magnetic pulse device to scramble Stark's systems for just long enough to slip out of Iron Man's hold and be gone.

* * *

They met behind masks again not two days later. 

"Are you tracking me?" Batman asked harshly.

"No," Iron Man shot back. "There's a more interesting man in Gotham for me, sorry. But I'd be lying if I'd say I haven't followed your work."

"You or the government organization you work for?"

"SHIELD?" Iron Man laughed. "They wish."

It could be a ploy. It could be the truth. Batman thought it a good time to vanish again and not investigate further.

* * *

Stark stayed in Gotham for longer than Bruce expected. The paranoid part of him expected that it was because he was investigating for SHIELD. But the project's he pitched to Wayne Tech as a smart investment looked like a very smart investment indeed. 

Stark, after all, was a technological genius and prided himself to be a Futurist. 

“I wasn’t aware you take business this seriously,” Bruce admitted over lunch.

“Hmm, maybe I don’t. But I try and take responsibility. My company is out of the arms deals and still needs to make money.”

“We’re interested in the satellite network plans, too, Stark,” Bruce admitted. He and Lucious had followed the Stark International press conferences with interest. 

“Tony, please, _Bruce_. I feel last names in our cases say too much about family.”

He had never thought about, but, yes, of course. The Stark's had died in a car crash and nearly all articles about Tony brought up the legacy of his father in one way or another. Bruce had been driven by his lost. Tony had picked up the pieces in a different way for too long.

"Tragic pasts aren't a popular topic, I take it?" Tony asked and 

"Paths trodden to death," he evaded and Stark nodded and dropped the topic. Instead, he leaned over the table to kiss him.

Against his better judgment Bruce kissed back. 

"I do have a hotel room right here," Tony suggested. 

It was a stupid idea. 

Batman wasn't someone who went with his stupid impulses.

Although Alfred would have taken this opportunity to whisper: "Selina."

"I'm free right now."

* * *

They never even make it to the elevator, before armed men storm the foyer. It took Bruce one look to see that these were Black Mask’s. Tony zoomed in on what was going on. “Let me handle that,” he said and Bruce didn’t think he was surprised to see the briefcase open and an armor close around Tony.

“In this enclosed space, you’ll be in trouble he warned,” but wasn’t surprised when Tony told him to get to safety. 

How convenient that he had parked “the car” just around the corner.

He sprinted out and around the back of the hotel so that Batman could make his big entrance just minutes later via window.

He knew the gangs better than Iron Man and together they had the situation under control in minutes.

But Batman couldn’t hang around and wait for the arrival of the police. He slipped away as he always did, made his way to the roof to find his exist.

“Not so fast.” Iron Man appeared, holding himself in mid-flight at the side of the building.

They stared at each other across the distance. Then Tony let the mask snap up.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where my date got off to?”

“I don’t keep track of…”

“Flattering,” Tony said and raised an eyebrow. “Although the growl is kind of sexy. You can keep it.”

* * *

The hotel room was forgotten. They make it back to Bruce’s own bedroom instead. Peeling each other out of their shirts and clothes was quick and frantic work, slowed down by Tony touching, stroking every single scar he had acquired over the years. “Woah,” Tony said. “You hide all of this?”

Bruce let his hand glide along the arc reactor, the clustered scars around it. “We’re not that different.”

“Way different,” Tony whispered and kissed a line along his shoulder, stroking a hand along some of the worst scars that were spread along his back. “But I don’t mind.”

It was the last bit of coherent thought that crossed either of their minds’ when the exploration and touching and body to body contact dissolved into something that needed no words. Emotions, questions, the recognition it all bled into need and pleasure and discovery.

* * *

“I brought someone,” he said before he had even fully stepped into the clubhouse Diana and Clark had started calling Hall of Justice, even though to him it would always be a piece of burned down childhood, “who might be able to help with our Kryptonite-powered robot problem.”

Victor looked up, immediately interested and probably about two steps ahead of the rest when it came to sensing the nearby technology.

Barry vanished from his chair, appeared before him: “Who?” He sped away again and around the room as if he was searching: “Where?”

Tony didn’t wear the armor when he stepped in behind him, looking from one to the other with a studied business face that Bruce knew now was a piece of his mask. 

“We deal with SHIELD now?” Arthur cocked his head to the side.

“He’s not SHIELD.”

Tony was swaying from side to side slowly as if he was weighing the statement. “I guess I’m a consultant sometimes.” 

“You’re an Avenger,” Arthur pointed out. The name had been publicly established two weeks ago when the “Avengers” had saved New York. 

Bruce caught Diana roll her eyes at the slight rise of testosterone and combative need to draw lines.

“Yes,” Tony said. “It’s not a full-time job though.”

Barry had used his time to study Tony from all sides. “The armor you’re not wearing is seriously cool. Can you wear it?”

“And can you help?” Clark finally asked. “With our - mostly my - robot problem?”

“I’ll try. Someone is trying to convince me to spend more time in Gotham.”

“You had the idea in the first place,” Bruce disagreed.

But Diana gave him a broad smile from across the room. She had a way of seeing the connections fall into place. And it seemed she approved of this one.

Not that Bruce was asking for her approval. Or anyone's.

It was enough for him to know that Tony had actually bought a penthouse in the city. For better or worse, it seemed Iron Man was going to be a permanent fixture in Bruce's life - in and out of masks.

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow me for fic updates on [tumblr](https://navaanwrites.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/navaanwrites). This fic has a post on the tumblr [here](https://navaanwrites.tumblr.com/post/177534164364/in-gotham-without-masks-navaan-dceumcu-tony) in case you want to share it. It also has a page on my [Dreamwidth](https://navaan.dreamwidth.org/619269.html).


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